Teen-Agers Make a Place to Call Their Own

By ELIZABETH MAKER

Published: August 15, 1999

ON another summer Sunday evening, just as the New Milford village green started to slip into darkness, 19-year-old Jeremy Hatch showed up and plunked down with his buddies on the crunchy brown grass.

Jeremy, wearing tattered jeans, a black blazer and green combat boots, reached into a breast pocket with a hand clad in a fingerless leather glove and pulled out a cigarette. He rested it on his bead-studded lower lip.

''There's really nothing else to do around here,'' said the high school drop out, sounding the refrain of many bored teen-agers.

At the southern end of the quarter-mile-long green stood 13-year-old Meredith Toussaint -- neatly dressed in a sunny yellow shirt, navy shorts and new white sneakers -- chatting with friends while waiting for her father to pick her up after a movie.

''It's a good place to meet, just to talk,'' she said, mingling among teen-agers loitering near the phone booth.

Meredith, who will be a freshman at New Milford High School this fall, and Jeremy, who plans to get his high school diploma at night school, seem to have little in common. But both agree that the answer to their boredom would be a center for teen-agers.

They are about to get just that.

The center, which was planned, built and will be operated by teen-agers, is slated to open by the end of the month in a long brick building formerly occupied by the state's Department of Transportation on Railroad Street.

The new center fills the same space as a previous one that closed three years ago after its director resigned. That center had been a popular hangout but waned because the teen-agers said they did not have enough involvement in planning activities and running it, said Jeff Ritchie, who will be a senior at New Milford High School this fall.

''That's why we wanted to start something new, start all over and have it be totally ours,'' said Jeff, who is among a group of 30 New Milford High School students who conceived the plan during a spring workshop sponsored by the town's Youth Agency.

''We got all these different kinds of kids together so no one would be left out,'' he said, ''and the one thing we all said was we need a place to go. A place that's got food, good music, stuff to do.''

And these teen-agers are making it happen with remarkable determination and organization.

Following is how more than 100 teen-age volunteers pushed the plan into reality:

*They divided themselves into nine committees and met every week for five months to work out the project details.

*They went before the town council, the Planning and Zoning Commissions and the Board of Education to present their plans.

*They obtained permits from the fire marshal, the Sewer Commission and the building inspector.

*They spent many hours researching furniture and appliance prices and asking for bids on items.

*They cleaned and painted the old center, constructing an impressive new center with a restaurant, juice bar, lounge, stage and dance floor.

*They planted petunias, pansies, hostas and marigolds outside. (Most of the plants were started from seed last winter in the New Milford Youth Agency's greenhouse on East Street.)

And now, the teen-agers are about to open the new center, called The Maxx, named after the popular hangout on the NBC sitcom ''Saved By the Bell.'' A grand opening party, which is open to the public, is scheduled for Aug. 27.

''This teen center is different because the kids have 100 percent ownership,'' said Mark Mankin, director of the youth agency. ''That's the key. These guys are just so into it.''

The Maxx will be overseen by the youth agency, which will provide a full-time, paid supervisor. Several adult volunteers have helped with carpentry, but the details are being left to the teens, Mr. Mankin said.

Mr. Mankin also said he has received many telephone calls from town and school officials all over the country eager to copy the project. He said they learned of the center after reading about it on the agency's Web site (www.youthagency.com).

''It's only been a few months since we started planning this thing, and it's really taken off,'' Mr. Mankin said. ''We're all sort of patting ourselves on the back.''

One recent Monday morning, four members of the project's executive committee took a break from their work to show a visitor around the center. They set down their hammers, dirty rags, paint brushes and gardening trowels, and walked to the back of the building, where the new wooden dance floor was about to be installed.

''The stage is going over here,'' said Corey Kenyon, who will be a senior in high school this year, ''and we're putting foam padding on the walls to help with the acoustics. The dance club committee is working on scheduling comedians and a wide variety of dance bands to perform there. We want to offer all kinds of music so we don't exclude anybody.''

''We're doing all of this with a budget of about $40,000,'' added Jeff, explaining that the town council had transferred funds remaining from the former center to the new project.

Mr. Mankin said that in the past, the town had allocated about $80,000 a year to the center for personnel, materials and activities. And while he expects that support to continue for the Maxx for the first few years, he said, ''it's our goal to be a self-sustaining, revenue-generating operation within four years.''

The lounge, juice bar and restaurant will open at 5 P.M. Friday and Saturdays. There will be a $5 cover charge for those attending dance club events, which begin at 7:30 Friday and Saturdays. The center is expected to be open seven days a week in the future.

Libby Covelli, who graduated last spring, led the way through the hall to the center's kitchen, where a large stove, triple sink, deep-frying bin, and other shiny new appliances were soon to be hooked up.

Just beyond the kitchen is the dining room, where 12 booths were about to be built. A large lounge area (which the teen-agers are hoping to fill with donated couches) and a juice bar where one can pull up a stool and order a drink (without alcohol).

''It'll be a nice way to meet other kids,'' said Erica Harris, who will be a junior. The Maxx, she explained, will be opened not only to New Milford High School students, but also to teen-agers from other area towns.

''Well have bouncers at the front door and cops in the parking lot,'' Jeff said. The bouncers will check identifications to make sure patrons are between 13 through 19 years old. ''We really want to set the tone right from the start that drinking and drugs are not allowed here,'' he added.

The center might help them and their peers steer clear of the kind of trouble that has claimed too many lives in the town.

''New Milford has suffered more than its share of tragedy when it comes to teen-agers and drunk-driving accidents,'' said Robert Guendelsberger, chairman of the New Milford Board of Education. ''Ever since I was a kid, we've lost at least one teen-ager a year.''

This past school year, though, students, teachers and administrators organized Refuse to Lose, to stop drunken-driving accidents. Besides offering a wide array of safe evening activities and many presentations about alcohol and drug abuse during the day, students and teachers at every grade level wore Refuse to Lose T-shirts every Friday as extra reminders to keep teen-agers away from the driver's seat if they had been drinking.

The campaign seems to have worked.

''We managed to make it through the entire year without losing anyone,'' said Donal Fiftal, the principal at New Milford High School. ''I think the kids in New Milford used to feel that death to alcohol was inevitable,'' he said. ''But now they're finally understanding that they have power over it, they have a choice.''

''How we dress, how we look, is just a surface thing,'' said Jeremy, the teen-ager who was sitting on the town green. ''We're all teen-agers and we're all pretty similar underneath. Punkers, preppies, geeks, jocks, homies, townies; we all want basically the same things. We want something to do, we want to fit in.''

Photos: Corey Kenyon, above, painting at New Milford's center for teen-agers. He and Erica Harris, left, selecting paint colors for another room, are two of the many volunteers. Middle, from left: Mike Weston, Andrew Woods and Tim Donovan on the town green. Mark Mankin, below, painting pillar, is director of the town's youth agency, which oversees the center. (Photographs by George Ruhe for The New York Times)